30125 - Comparative Literatures (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course addresses to graduate (MA) students who have already taken courses in Italian and foreign literatures. Students, on completing the course, will be accustomed to observe literary phenomena within a broader context than that of single national literatures, paying particular attention to the methodological issues facing comparative research.

Course contents

  

Fathers, between prohibition and gift.

"Parricide is [...] the principal and primal crime of humanity as well as of the individual". Thus does Freud write in his essay on Dostoevsky, and continues: "It can scarcely be owing to chance that three of the masterpieces of the literature of all time – the Oedipus Rex of Sophocles, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov – should all deal with the same subject, parricide". What has become of the figure of the father in the era of his “evaporation”?

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

 

Readings/Bibliography

First part

W. Shakespeare: Hamlet

H. de Balzac: Le Père Goriot

F. Dostoevskij: Brat'ja Karamazovy

Second Part

F. Kafka: Die Verwandlung

: Brief an den Vater

F. Tozzi: Con gli occhi chiusi

P. Auster: The Invention of Solitude

Ph. Roth: Patrimony. A True Story

C. McCarthy: The Road

V. Magrelli: Geologia di un padre

Students shall choose four amongst the authors proposed in the second part of the bibliography: reading all three works listed in the first part is mandatory.

Theoretical texts

S. Freud: Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913)

S. Freud: Dostoevsky and Parricide (1927).

J. Lacan: Hamlet (extraits de Le séminaire : Livre VI, Le Désir et son interprétation: 1958-1959).

M. Recalcati: Cosa resta del padre? La paternità nell'epoca ipermoderna, Cortina, Milano 2011

 

 

Teaching methods

The course is based upon around 60 hours of lectures: students are invited to take part in the lectures and debate the subjects put forward.

Assessment methods

The final exam, consisting of face to face interviews, aims at verifying knowledge acquired through the reading of the works proposed and assess students’ critical skills. The students’ capacity to navigate literary and critical texts, contextualising them appropriately, shall be evaluated positively. An assessment of excellence will indicate an hermeneutical capacity on the part of the student to create connections between literary and critical texts, together with ascertained expository skills. Possible gaps in knowledge on matters discussed during the course and inappropriate, or confused language will entail low marks.

Teaching tools

Lectures will make use of PPTs, as well as film viewings. Any additional teaching material shall be made available to students on the site (link ‘Teaching tools – Materiale didattico)

Office hours

See the website of Ferdinando Amigoni